A magnetic tape has sometimes pieces of information, for example, pieces of music which are recorded in portions of the tape spaced apart from each other along the length of the tape. The intervening blank portions of the tape between the information carrying portions of the tape sometimes have quite long lengths.
In a prior art magnetic tape recorder and/or reproducer, repetition of manual operations is necessitated to cause the recorder and/or reproducer to successively perform the PLAY and the quick transport mode operations in the forward and backward directions for selecting a desired piece of information, for example, a piece of music. This prior art recorder and/or reproducer has a drawback that the troublesome manual operations must be repeated until the desired information piece is found and it takes a relatively long time to repeat the manual operations. Furthermore, particularly when the recorder and/or reproducer is mounted in a motorcar, repeating such manual operations may bring about dangers to the driver.
In another prior art magnetic tape recorder and/or reproducer which is capable of quickly transporting the magnetic tape in the forward direction to automatically set the magnetic head at the leading edge of an information carrying tape portion in response to a manual command operation, such a manual command must be repeated until the leading edge of a tape portion carrying a desired piece of information reaches the magnetic head for selecting the desired information piece. This prior art recorder and/or reproducer also has the same drawback as that encountered in the prior art recorder and/or reproducer as described above.
Another prior art magnetic tape recorder and/or reproducer is capable of quickly transporting the magnetic tape in the backward direction to automatically set the magnetic head at a leading edge of an information carrying tape portion in response to a manual command operation. Also in this recorder and/or reproducer, the manual command must be repeated for selecting the desired piece of information. This prior art recorder and/or reproducer also has the same drawbacks as that encountered in the prior art recorder and/or reproducers as described above.